Alexandra Morton returns fish farm manure to aquaculture site

Apr 26th, 2011 10:21 AM

Media Release (Campbell River, B.C., April 26, 2011) This morning, Alexandra Morton delivered fish farm manure back to Marine Harvest before visiting the head offices of Mainstream and John Duncan MP as part of a peaceful 'Fish Farm Crime Scene' tour. Later today (1pm), a flotilla protest and swim around a salmon farm operated by Grieg Seafood will take place in Conville Bay in the Wild Salmon Narrows around Quadra Island. "This is a crime scene," said Alexandra Morton. "The message to Marine Harvest, Mainstream and Grieg is crystal clear - cut the crap and stop polluting BC's pristine waters. Please remove your filthy feedlots out of the path of migrating wild salmon." Jody Eriksson, who collected the waste samples and filmed under the farms, said: "It's a wasteland down under the farms. We were shocked: piles of fish faeces, rotting feed, bacterial mats and bubbling gases; a bottom smothered by waste. This out of sight damage must be exposed!" Michelle Nickerson of the Fraser River Ripple Effect, who is swimming around a salmon farm with her colleague Katherine Trajan, said: "We are swimming around a salmon farm because the out-migration of the Fraser River salmon smolts is happening now. It is foolish having fish farms on migration routes. We must remove salmon farms from wild salmon migration routes immediately". Watch a video of waste mounds and methane bubbles under a Marine Harvest farm in the Broughton Archipelago: http://vimeo.com/21948258 Another video shows white bacteria (Beggiatoa) growing under a Marine Harvest salmon farm: http://vimeo.com/21948800 More videos showing the impacts under salmon farms operated by Mainstream (Cermaq) were also made publicly available for the first time online via: “Dead reef-building glass sponges dying under Norwegian salmon feedlot in BC”: http://vimeo.com/22311297 “Approaching a mound of farm waste”: http://vimeo.com/22315938 Last year, farmed salmon escapees were returned to Marine Harvest in Campbell River as part of 'The Get Out Migration'. This year’s event is part of Salmon Are Sacred's 'Mayday for Wild Salmon' which includes a May Day walk and rally in Victoria on Sunday (1st May). Earlier this month there was a 'DFO Crime Scene' protest in Vancouver.
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To arrange interview or for more information contact, Alexandra Morton: 250-974-7086 or gorbuscha@gmail.com More details via: www.salmonaresacred.org